Hey everybody go look at my new blog! There isn't much content as of yet, but it will be very very exciting in the near future.

The Cure-Friday I'm In Love

I woke up this morning, and outside, the sun spun on, but without the extreme, unpleasant heat, and the birds (there's a nest of them right above our door. It's the most adorable thing ever!) didn't stop twittering, and everything looked wonderful. And I got up, feeling this incredible summery energy, and this song popped in my head. It had been a while since I listened to The Cure--mostly, it's just when I'm feeling depressed, angsty, in need of familiar moody, atmospheric music, but today, this song was written for me. For everyone, really, who felt that lift of spirits, that release of happiness, that fluttery rush of love, of the world. And oh, soaking in The Cure in their dodgy optimism, can there be anything better?

The Get Up Kids-So Close to Me (Cure cover!)

And while we're on the topic of the scene and The Cure, here is a bouncy, fun, cover of a Cure song by the Get Up Kids. I always thought they had some sort of indie cred--far better than, say, Panic! At the Disco. They're a bit more along the lines of The Promise Ring and Saves the Day than Hawthorne Heights and whatever shitty wanna be screamo band that everyone else is adoring now, aren't they? But I really shouldn't be judging, considering...oh, nevermind. Just, you know, ironic that The Cure is ending up such a fiting little sound for the glorious summer.

Here are some things you should know about A Clockwork Orange:

1. Immediately after watching the movie, I dubbed it my favorite movie. And I am usually not one for naming favorites right off the top of my head, especially if it's a movie, since movies pass and go...

2. Immediately after dubbing it my favorite movie, I went ahead and Wikied it, and looked for all sorts of exciting things associated with it since I knew it was a cult film and all.

3. The day immediately after, I watched it again. And dubbed it the most amazing film of all time.

4. The cinematography is brilliant. The acting is perfection. Wow.

5. The words were delicious.

6. Immediately after that, I read the book.

7. And that was real horrorshow, too, but I think, mostly due to my still flaming obsession for the movie, I only wanted to relive the film and did not appreciate it as much as I probably could have under any other circumstances.

8. I think that is all, for now.

9. Here is the signature song from the movie, "Singing in the Rain" by Gene Kelly, which is rather wonderful in its own right, but after that infamous scene from the movie is to be heard in a whole other light...I seem to have this unhealthy habit of constantly coming back to listening to it. It's also good for laughs when played in the presence of people ignorant of the movie, and thinking that it is indeed a good piece of old music.

10. If you have not seen the movie, this is like a direct command to watch it. Seriously. Jaw dropping, obsession worthy pure brilliance. I've never seen anything that affected me this much.

Watch: Broken Social Scene-Fire Eye'd Boy



This is such a strange video for this song, featuring half of Broken Social Scene --the, uh, skinny hipster guys with curly hair half--training hard for what appears to be some sort of an American Idol type competition, a lesson on fear by a crazy coach, locker rooms, jumping about in bath robes and gym short shorts, and a number of funny guests and snippets of talk.

It's a lot of fun to watch--but also, again, so weird for this song. I don't know--it's very unexpected, but surprises are good! Surprises are fun! It's slightly distracting from the song, but that's what music videos are all about, right? ;)

Favorite bit:
"If you don't run faster, I'll pull your CD from the stores!" That'll get them moving. Runner up: their auditions. And also: the last bit with the rocket. Yay.

The novel: Jpod-Douglas Coupland

I like Douglas Coupland. You know, I really, really do. I might not like him as much as some other authors, but I like his self referencing, a million pop culture snippets within a few pages, post-post-post modern style, general bizarrities, and the fact that he's a character in this very book. It's just such a funny little thing to do, and I always wondered, if I tried to write myself into one of my own stories--what would happen? I noticed that writers who do that tend to have their characters dislike them. A lot, as was the case with Stephen King and the last Dark Tower book, and of course, JPod.

And really, I liked this book. The pages and pages of what some would consider "useless" information (I mean, yes, it does take up a lot of pages. But still.) like snippets from spam, the digits of pie up to a ridiculously high number, a large number of prime numbers, all sorts of randomness sprinkled in...it's just, you know, not his best work. It's charming and a lot of fun to read and flip through, but the stroy itself is a little lacking. Hilarious, unrealistic things happen--such is the appeal of many Coupland books, and his characters, as usual, are your expected twentysomethings, totally tech savy and with insane personalities and traits, but I mean, despite the obvious, insane plot points, not a whole lot happens...which is okay, when you need something to entertain and catch all the references and feel special about, and it's a good, different thing after Michael Chabon. Just--Play again? Y/N

I really would not know.

How hipster are you?

Sick today...

Tell me your results/thoughts. This might be a forcast for something soon...

Contact:
Email: xbrokennightmarex (at) gmail (dot) com
AIM: xnoironyx

email for mailing address.




About:

From some bizarre twist of fate, you've arrived at the Bubble Death pop music/book blog. This is a blog in which I post music (mp3s and commentary) and books (commentary). There are also a few features. Well, okay, only one that I can really think of that's a regular and semi-exciting: Video Wednesday. You can probably guess that it features music videos. And it's on Wednesdays. I'm hoping to get more features in the future--aren't we all?

Anyway.

Here we are on the music blog wiki.

Here's a story about the blog.

It all began in the spring of 2005. When I, a young, eager, aspiring writer and aspiring music lover, still yet unaware of the beautiful world of mp3 blogging, was desperate for new music (or, at least, new music downloads) and stumbled upon The Crutch, which, aside from pages bursting with free and legal indie mp3s, also happened to link to a few mp3 blogs (they don't anymore but appeared to have started their own blog. Yay or nay? Your call.) I clicked around, read around, and got addicted. Then I figured, hey, I can write--I adore writing, but I need deadlines! I need readers! I need pressure in order to finish anything! And I can totally start my own music blog and get all that!

Yes, I had a couple of MP3s and a lot of ambition, signed up for blogger and realized just how easy it was to make things nice and bloggie looking. Of course, I had a totally stock template back then, nothing like the slightly personalized layout now, but I wrote words, and the words and the links clicked together, and everything looked better than anything I'd ever tried to create on the Internet before. So, this blog was born. I wasn't a very good, regular poster to start. If you dig through the archives, I kept going on loooong breaks and coming back and breaking off again...

Obviously, that was not a good habit. I'm pretty sure that had I kept my posting frequency (and quality) up all the time, my blog would be at a slightly better traffic than it is now. But, I'm not complaining. I think those breaks and returns helped this blog become more of what it is--you know, writing and love and all that cute stuff. I think regular readers (are you out there, somewhere?) know that I can get long winded on posts. But I mean, come on, I'm a fiction writer. See Fred's wonderful blog or Said the Gramophone for further examples of (much better) long, story like prose.

Where was I? Oh, yes. So I like the blog the way it is now. It's probably not the preferred format for some (most?) readers, but that's the way it is. And in fact, if anything, I'm hoping for longer and higher quality posts in the future! I always say that. And the more I post, the better (kinda?) it gets, right?

I lost my train of thought again. This also happen to happen a lot, so my posts sometimes can get off track. Speaking of off track--sometimes, very rarely, I'll also post linkage types, with interesting websites/blogs/finds of this wonderful interweb. These posts are usually non-music related, but my interests range all over the place and change on a really, often, basis, shall we say? I hope those are not too distracting. I like sharing these tidbits even thought they might be obvious to readers of non-mp3 type blogs (like...oh, I'll probably put up another sidebar section just for them!).

So I'm running out of things to say. I guess I'll write more should I be inspired by something important I've forgotten. All in all, though, I'm very glad I've had this blog and had the oppurtunity to hear these amazing new bands and chat with some very amazing people. And I'm very hopeful that none of that will be going away. YAY!

And as a side note, happy birthday to me, yeah? (I'm still really young by any standards. That's always a positive, right?) <3

So today is a special post.

Since tomorrow is my personal birthday, and since I originally started this blog in March of 2005, then went on a break from like June till September...I've decided to dub today, June 23, as the blog's official birthdate (don't ask me about the math, okay?).

Which means, lovely readers, that today is The Bubble Death's one year birthday! Balloons! Fireworks! Cake! Presents! Myspace (maybe?)!

Here's what I'm going to do as a present for myself...are you ready? It's super exciting and much too late. Take a wild guess as to what it is. It doesn't involve mp3s.

Hey, look, there goes my readers!

Ah, well, what I have in store is actually much more exciting...ie, a nonexistant faq and an about this blog/me section! Isn't that super exciting?!

If you're wondering why I'm using so many exclaimation marks and super
short
paragraphs
it's because it's the summer and it's been a few days of warm nothingness and now this hyperactivity is bubbling up and I just can't help it. So. Yes. What follows will be two posts that shall live on forever in the memory of the bubble death. I shall also hope to update the side bar and make things exciting, and maybe even a redesign if I'm feeling up to it...wait and see.

In the meanwhile, I'll have some mp3s up, just not today, not right now. Ah.

The Novel: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay-Michael Chabon
The song: Tilly & the Wall-Rainbows in the Dark

This song really has nothing to do with the book. It's more of an excuse to post this tap-dancing non-stop hyper-active talk-about-everything-in-one-fantastic-song lyrical and stylized indie pop marathon. I guess that could be the description of very many Tilly & the Wall songs, but this one carries that extra glow of stories and faces and personalities, of a hundred careless kids with high hopes for a future. Something like that, anyway. All I know is that tapping, frenzied melody can't really be resisted, and there's a strong sense of adventure--which, I suppose, does connect with the book.

So I've heard a lot of amazing things about this book--after all, Michael Chabon is Largehearted Boy's favorite writer (whose 52 Books idea I most definitely did not rip off. Cough.) And I'm glad--it didn't disappoint. It was a wonderful read that inspired me to pick up a few comic books and look at them from a whole other light. At the moment, my brain's rather frozen and confused and totally not in the right format to comment--and I think there's been enough hype and commentary about it from every other source possible. So I think I'll just say that it's definitely a modern classic and necessary read. Dear Amazon have the plot/crazy reviews covered.

Today's Video Wednesday brings you three (that's right, THREE) awesome videos by artists and songs you're probably already familiar with but which are fantastically awesome as videos as well. The ideas is that if there's a whole, whopping three of them, there's gotta be one that you haven't seen yet and can therefore provide entertainment. Like I said, they're all sorts of brilliant so it'd be a good idea to watch them even if you're dead sick of the songs already.

Watch: The Pipettes-Pull Shapes



You already know how I feel about the song, and if you don't know yet, I'm also very much in love with lots of claps and polka dots. The Pipettes are automatically high up on my scale of artist genius. But apparently, this video is a recreation of a scene from the Valley of the Dolls, see?. I've never seen the Valley of the Dolls, but my friends keep recommending the book and also, I think it places on that hipster must read list from the Hipster's Handbook, so it's probably really awesome. Fun, fun, fun video only fitting for the Pips.


Watch: Lily Allen-Smile (Windows Media stream)



There are lots and lots of reason to adore Lily Allen: The utter catchy songs blending hip beats and carelessly brilliant lyrics, the driving, beach factor, the must listen to song repeatedly and then again, a few more times factor, but I think w hat really pulls it all together, what really makes Lily such a heroic new pop star is her attitude. I mean, she really has it, that no one else matters total laid back, confident, super likable attitude. It's reflected in almost every song, and every picture, and every interview and Myspace blog. So, this video pretty much just wraps everything up. Involving everything you could possibly ever want in a music video: beating people up, destroying people's homes, dumping pills in drinks, and absolutely brilliant make up in the cafe scene. Seriously.



Watch: Nelly Furtado-Maneater (WM stream, or YouTube, or use this to download...thanks, as always Antville!)



The beginning of this video is really amazing. The set up, the scene, the tension, it's all so brilliant and executed with all levels of perfection. But then, I'm not sure if the video keeps that up all the way through. For example, the JAMMINZZZ WALLPAPERZ 4 UR CELL CALL NOW type dancing in front of fake flames thing is such a unhappy distraction to the mood of the video. I mean, I love that dark, wild, dangerous and sexy theme but don't go ruining it with trashy gimmicks...I think I got too distracted by things like that, although I liked the trashing against fenced wire and steamy hands on windows thing. And the ending, of course. "Cute".

The Lucksmiths-Young and Dumb

This is such a perfect, frolicking, romantic, sweet, adventuring summer twee pop song I can't stand it. The low key instruments, and even Marty's near nonchalant book reading boy voice adds to the charm of this little track.

Imagine: You and that someone cruise on the highways in your "vintage" (but what everyone else calls "old") car, and it's June, the heat haven't sunk in, but there's a breeze brushing against the windows. So you roll down the windows, and you turn up the stereo, and The Lucksmiths are singing, but they're singing for you, they're just as in love with the world as you are, and they can tell it. They have rolling guitars and gentle drums, and they're young, and they're young and dumb...and so are you, and you sing along, and everything is so, so hopeful.

Clawjob-Space Pass

So Sufjan's got his states project, Bishop Allen's working on that EP per month thing, and Clawjob manages to release an astonishing rock opera featuring a whole story line about students in Space School, featuring an actual narrative, characters, a variety of vocalists, instruments, and really, really great music to go along with it as their debut.

...what is the world coming to?

Whatever it is, I'm totally in love with it. This is like a great story and album in one, and if it also fulfills the popist's unnatural catchy and bouncy and fantastic constant listening requirement, which means that even though the album is great as a whole, the individual songs are plenty great to listen to, as well. The sci-fi-ish bleeps and effects add on the story presentation, but also to the song itself, along with the swipes of snappy guitar riffs and fun lyrics (which applies even without space and such bizarrities, is that a word?). And also, the unintentional (I'm guessing) fact that "My Space pass" kinda makes "Myspace Pass" is funny...Listen and love.

Watch: Belle and Sebastian-White Collar Boy

Too much Belle & Sebastian? Never!



The bar and some of the glittery thingys remind me of a lot of the New Pornographers video, except I liked that one better, but I do adore this song so very much, so it's hard to rank the video next to the song. But it's pretty fun to watch, everything's in a drunken slur, and that bit after the song ends is also pretty damned entertaining. I was expecting a little better of a storyline for this song, but this totally spins off in a new direction.

The novel: A Confederacy of Dunces-John Kennedy Toole
The song: The Flaming Lips-Yeah Yeah Yeah Song

This book is...without a fitting description. I mean, really, now. There is so much going on. So many subplots based upon subplots, sub-characters starting off sub-conflicts with other sub-characters. A variety of wit and charm and funniness and a careless, wonderful sort of all-over-the-placeness that's just such great fun to read.

Although the cast of bizarre characters with such fantastic personalities and lives and subplots is head spinning awesome, it's surprising how few of the characters are the sort that's likable. This is just taking the whole "everyone has flaws" thing to a whole new level, and it's a great level at that. It's hard to find sympathize with any character, as all of them have their twisted (hilarious!) appeal and far more depressing, frustrating faults...I've never had so much interest to totally hatable characters and their crazy situations.

I won't attempt to go into a nice little plot overview. You'll just have to read and savor it yourself. Brilliant.

I don't really have anything more to say about the Flaming Lips, though. The new album was a little disapointing. But that's allowed. This song is still a wonderful pop song, the sort that only the Lips can achieve. Not related to the equally awesome band Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Yeah.

!!Today's the last day to sent in your BHP contest submissions, winners will be emailed tomorrow!

There's a reason why this Monday is one of the most lovable, excitable, wonderful Monday this year. #1. It's the last real week of school before the three short finals days, and #2, I just spent about twenty minutes obsessing over the new Threadless, who were crazy enough to release 24 new shirts and a ten dollar sell. Plus, launching new categories like Kids shirts (super adorable and yupster core on so many levels...), type shirts and Select Shirts (featuring famous designers at a higher price)...

And #3: (excuse all fangirl gushing and tendencies and such, as regular readers know that this tends to be what happens when it comes to my favorite band ever) see this, which is what one of local alt. radio stations holds every year, free concerts at Del Mar after race tracks spread out during the summer. Usually, they get a couple of local bands and one or two rather big name bands, and this year classics Violent Femmes and Louis XIV are back (like the previous couple of years), which is fantastic (even though I might not be in San Diego for the Femmes, I saw them last year so I'm not too stressed), but this year...oh my god...this year, remember, their roster of FREE concerts after the races include The Flaming Lips (!!!!) and, shock, gasp, OMG, ect. Jimmy Eat World.

I have no clue how the hell they arranged to have those bands to play, for free...oh my god. I'm in a state of shock and amazement right now. I thought fate had it so that I would never get to see my favorite band live. And unfortunately, I think my summer schedule will also have me out of the country for the Lips, and yeah, they are probably the most wonderful live band ever to exist, but I've also seen them before and wonderful Jimmy Eat World makes up for all that...

So yes, I'm in a state of super hyper happiness at the moment, so here's a song about twee by a twee bands featuring about a hundred twee references for my presentation of twee "taking a stand" for my finals in English and history, and which I've been listening to, non-stop, for a long while. A glimpse into the life of a twee kid, flickering through her experiences like a photo album, snapshots and frozen frames held within snappy lyrics...Super clever and great, like "Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend's Too Stupid to Know About"

Tullycraft-Twee

The Grates-Inside Outside

Ahhh! to incredible, energetic, chaotic, rioting artsy girl alt. punk super POP (is that even a genre? I can't keep track anymore...) Brilliant, on so many levels. The LSD like speed and attention span, but the instruments pull it off so well! They're totally perfect for my current "chicks with major attitude singing awesome pop songs" phrase right now, like, even a little The Pipettes core, except with less cuteness and more angular, punky edges. Sharp. Wonderful. The Grates could totally be NBT (like, who isn't), except they are really infectiously good.

Contest Reminder: The Black Heart Procession contest is still going on, for wonderful swag like posters and 7-inches. Shoot me an email with your favorite tagline by the 12th and get excited for free swag goodness.

Sia-Breathe Me

This is not a new, brillant discovery by any means. In fact, ever since I heard it on my favorite POP 77 mix, it's been haunting with its beauty and majesty, the grand sweep of the instruments, the mourning, gentle sprinkling of the piano, the budding, molding verses building to that rush of a chorus...but when the sky is overcast and those splattering rain drops ever so sweetly massage the ground, I'm reminded of this song, and of how I've yet to share its effects...

It's a POP (not POP!) Monday.

Nelly Furtado-Maneater

The brilliance of this song is generally considered to be old news, but for some reason it really didn't catch on the first couple of times I heard it. I managed to dismiss Nelly to the back of the pop room and proceed to become confused as to what all the fuss was about. But then, upon my recent, furious obsession with Lily Allen, something sparked this connection and suddenly, I could see the blinding, mesmerizing, pumping light at the end of the tunnel and it manages to scream "listen to me!" And when it hits, it hits. The snags of the keyboard, the twinkling little music box melody to the full frontal assult of breath taking catchy dancey bassey pop clarity. And now, she does make me fall in love.


Paris Hilton-Stars are Blind (Get it from Stereogum or Perez Hilton)

It was, of course, an expected move. Which slutty, near anorexic, model beautiful starlet isn't going to start a musical career? I always thought Paris already made music and I just never noticed it, but nope, she's only just flashing the world the, er, gift of her singing voice. Anyway, Stereogum admits to liking it, Pop Justice adores it, and it's ridiculously catchy and so light flavored it might as well drift into the sky. A rather typical summer beach song, vaguely singalong-able or repeatable, perfect for sunbathing in a near non existant bikini with Star by (Hired, not so good ghost writer employee) Pamela Anderson. The hipsters' apparent extreme hatred seems unjustified for such a strawberry/cherry bubblegum song that really doesn't offend or challenge. I only wish Paris would have had the guts to tackle a different song subject matter than just boring romance...

Eagle and Talon-Birds that Breaks

I'm in love with the slicing melody, the warning, edging attitude. The barely repressed steps forward, the free and ready to attack guitars. See, this is chained, glaring, artsy post-punk advancing, stepping on toes and not apologizing. This is paint splatters upon a metal door, this is spikey delicious duo of two girls with major hands-on-hips stance viewpoint and plenty of jagged lyrics to last a while. This is Eagle and Talon, the claws being the song, and all.

The novel: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal-Christopher Moore
The song: Beulah-Me and Jesus Don't Talk Anymore

In a word: hilarious.

In some more words, the book is about what you'd expect it to be about from the title, spinning the story of Jesus (Joshua, actually) mostly throughout the first thirty years of his life with some wacky adventures and meetings with the three wise men, who end up being three bizarre, wonderful people of sorts. Told from the voice of Biff, Josh's BFF, a witty, women chasing guy who invented sarcasm, irony and the pencil, among other things, religion is suddenly pumped up to a place of so awesome! in my book. Anyway, Biff is writing this to complete the story, and staying with him in an hotel room is a soap oprah, wrestling, and general TV loving angel who wants to be Spiderman. Yeah, it's that kind of a book. And it is really brilliant on so many levels.

This Joshua feels much more authentic and easy to love with a personality, a sense of irony and general little mischeviousness. And Biff, an asshole, according to the kind and perfect angel, is even better. One of those character you adore to shreds and laugh and cry over, the sort who's charming and sweet and rude and annoying. A wonderful character.

Anyway, I loved, loved, loved this book (humor level is definitely up to David Sedaris, but with a totally different style). The realism is punched on with the life into the characters, and I'm sure I'll be entering into a train of Moore books in teh near future.

Beulah doesn't actually sound like the mood of the book, but I'm taking the easy way out and avoiding the problem by just skipping to the search for title related song type thing. The piano in this song is right on track, and signature Elephant 6 bounce and just right amount of pop vs. indie is a classic touch. There's so much drama in this song, so much contrast between the passionate and beautiful, the twinging, high guitars adding that vintage sound. The slightly unusual song structure also works in its favor, enclosing melodic, ballad like verses with a crashing chorus.

The novel: A Heartbreaking Word of Staggering Genius-Dave Eggers

Ah, Dave Eggers. I'm really not sure what to think of him, now. I mean, this is a memoir of his life, but it has the stamp, feel and taste of fiction. I love Eggers' writing style, although sometimes the run-on thoughts and occurances does get confusing and a bit, well, long, generally the prose and situations pulled the book through. And the foreword, preface, table of contents and acknowledgments were a lot of fun to read and totally witty and self aware and ironic and so hipster it hurts (but I mean, he does run McSweeney's). It was, in fact, full of tugs nad pulls of emotions, mostly, happiness and sadness, and heartbreaking? Slightly. Staggering genius? Most definitely.

The novel: south of the Border, West of the Sun-Haruki Murakami

This is really just not my type of reading. It's a short book (which is good for those times during classes when there's nothing better to do), but it has no strong "read-on" sentiments. No major hooks or conflicts, just a sample life of this man and his relationships and such with a couple of women, who generally turn out boring, even his mysterious love who flashes in and out of his life, leaving him deprived and desperate for her repeatedly. The few curious incidents this woman leaves him with is never explained, and in generaly nothing worth crying over happens and things fade into nothingness...I couldn't care for the character at all, as they were all model citizens and devoid of real, gripping personality. But then again...me the emotionless robot may just be taking over again. But I doubt it.